- Price: £445 / $500
- Category: All-Mountain, Freeride/Powder
- Ability Level: Intermediate, Advanced
- Size: 155
- Flex: 6/10
- Shape: Directional
- Profile: Hybrid
- Base: Sintered
- New for 2020/21
You guessed it from the name. This ain’t no soft, fluffy Mogwai. This is a full-on, chaos-inducing, little monster. The Gremlin is Gnu’s foray into the short ‘n’ wide world of freeride decks. Careful now, this thing bites.
The Gremlin comes in a punchy 155 size only. Some readers will be all too familiar with making the excuse of “what it lacks in length it makes up for in width”, but that’s exactly how the Gremlin achieves the same levels of float as longer options. Increase the width and you increase the surface area, but keep the length down and it can still turn on a penny, making it ideal for tree-lined powder runs.
“The Gremlin is Gnu’s foray into the short ‘n’ wide world of freeride decks. Careful now, this thing bites”
When the tide’s low you don’t have to retreat back home for a board change, there’s minimal chance of your boots dragging when charging the piste and, although it can be tricky getting a board like this on edge for less experienced riders, once it’s there it rails carves like a dream. Slushy spring laps are also right up the Gremlin’s street, designed to make easy work of end of season resort conditions.
Gnu have built the Gremlin with their C3 camber, a profile that has traditional camber starting outside the bindings at either end, with a small rocker in the middle of the arc. This rides a lot like traditional camber, in terms of how much grip and pop it can generate. And when twinned with the serrated Magne-Traction metal edges means it can make mincemeat of ice and hard pack.
Under the hood of this directional stick, Gnu have packed in sustainably harvested aspen wood core with paulownia stringers, which when blended with bi and tri axial glass fibres give it a poppy medium-stiff flex. The higher stiffness comes in use by stopping unwanted vibrations when going mach ten on the super-fast sintered base. Just remember not to feed it after midnight.
